Bible Commentaries

Ge 47:1-31.

JOSEPH'S PRESENTATION AT COURT.

1. Joseph . . . told Pharaoh, My father and my brethren--Joseph furnishes a beautiful example of a man who could bear equally well the extremes of prosperity and adversity. High as he was, he did not forget that he had a superior. Dearly as he loved his father and anxiously as he desired to provide for the whole family, he would not go into the arrangements he had planned for their stay in Goshen until he had obtained the sanction of his royal master.

2. he took some of his brethren--probably the five eldest brothers: seniority being the least invidious principle of selection.

4. For to sojourn . . . are we come--The royal conversation took the course which Joseph had anticipated

(Ge 46:33),

and they answered according to previous instructions--manifesting, however, in their determination to return to Canaan, a faith and piety which affords a hopeful symptom of their having become all, or most of them, religious men.

7. Joseph brought in Jacob his father--There is a pathetic and most affecting interest attending this interview with royalty; and when, with all the simplicity and dignified solemnity of a man of God, Jacob signalized his entrance by imploring the divine blessing on the royal head, it may easily be imagined what a striking impression the scene would produce (compare

Heb 7:7).

8. Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou?--The question was put from the deep and impressive interest which the appearance of the old patriarch had created in the minds of Pharaoh and his court. In the low-lying land of Egypt and from the artificial habits of its society, the age of man was far shorter among the inhabitants of that country than it had yet become in the pure bracing climate and among the simple mountaineers of Canaan. The Hebrews, at least, still attained a protracted longevity.

9. The days of the years of my pilgrimage, &c.--Though a hundred thirty years, he reckons by days (compare

Ps 90:12),

which he calls few, as they appeared in retrospect, and evil, because his life had been one almost unbroken series of trouble. The answer is remarkable, considering the comparative darkness of the patriarchal age (compare

2Ti 1:10).

11. Joseph placed his father and his brethren . . . in the best of the land--best pasture land in lower Egypt. Goshen, "the land of verdure," lay along the Pelusiac or eastern branch of the Nile. It included a part of the district of Heliopolis, or "On," the capital, and on the east stretched out a considerable length into the desert. The ground included within these boundaries was a rich and fertile extent of natural meadow, and admirably adapted for the purposes of the Hebrew shepherds (compare

Ge 49:24; Ps 34:10; 78:72).

13-15. there was no bread in all the land--This probably refers to the second year of the famine

(Ge 45:6)

when any little stores of individuals or families were exhausted and when the people had become universally dependent on the government. At first they obtained supplies for payment. Before long money failed.